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Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

RE: Sophists? Inquisitors?

I'm not so sure that an experiment can't prove. For example, if my theory is that cannonballs fall down, and I perform an experiment by dropping a cannonball, and the cannonball falls up, I've disproved my hypothesis. But if I drop the cannonball and it falls in the down direction and lands on my foot, I've done a pretty good job of proving that cannoballs fall down.

One could quibble to be sure, and suggest that the dropping down might be the result of a quantum fluctuation, or that I've merely been hypnotized into believing I see the cannonball falling down. In that sense, yeah, I agree, an experiment can't prove; proof is the province of mathematics, not experimental science. But fortunately for those of us who depend upon experimental results to get through the day without floating off into space, the universe isn't generally that capricious.

I'm afraid I can't agree with your assertion that "if one's beliefs were based on a completely different model of the underlying reality from the experimenter's the results will likely have little impact. (One may dismiss a result as incompetent, irrelevant or inconclusive)." That just isn't true, not in the hard sciences, anyway. Scientists do contest the valididity of new experiments, and require that controversial experimental results be reproduced to minimize the possibility of error. Both are essential components of scientific method. But once the experimental evidence is sufficient to disprove a theory, scientists generally discard it pretty quickly. Or accept it if the experiment verifies in a spectacular way its predictive power. Rather, where scientific disagreements do persist, it's usually because experimental and observational evidence haven't yet reached the point at which the issue can be decided conclusively one way or the other. It's during that interregnum when you you typically see the "old scientist" phenomenon, with the older people in the field rejecting the paradigm shift. But they are doing so as a matter of opinion, not scientific fact.

An example of such an interregnum: the question of whether our ancestors descended from Neanderthals. For many years, there were paleontologists in both camps, since the observational evidence, basically skeletal similarities or dissimilarities, was inconclusive. Then, the Neanderthal genome was sequenced, showing that Neanderthals were an independent species. Recently, with more complete sequencing, evidence was found that interbreeding did occur, but on a very limited scale. Now that the evidence is in, I don't think you'll find many paleontologists arguing the old positions.

Many other questions remain open, e.g., whether the existing experimental evidence for life on Mars (structures within Martian rocks and a lander experiment that found evidence of metabolism) are valid. In that case, scientists argue both sides, and will until more exhaustive observations can be made.


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